


Ratface

by idrilswritings (idrilhadhafang)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Emotional Manipulation, Female Friendship, Female Protagonist, Gen, High School In Space In The Future, Mystery, Original Fiction, Science Fiction, Short Story, The Space Setting Is A Metaphor, Writing to Cope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-02-22 23:10:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23635216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilswritings
Summary: A girl makes a horrifying discovery.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1
Collections: Trope Bingo: Round Fourteen





	Ratface

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Friends to Enemies

When Cat Waters met Emily Scott, she definitely didn’t expect that encounter to leave a mark — and not a particularly good one at that.   
  
Cat couldn’t say that she was the most popular girl in Eileen Booker High, in 2030. It was something that the people of Old Earth wouldn’t have expected, high school in outer space, but after the world had ended ten years ago, it was how quite a few people did things. But she wasn’t the most popular girl. She couldn’t even say that she liked herself much, just because she wasn’t the sort who stood out. A dreamer by nature. The sort who was too soft in personality, too naive. Jake, her friend Luna’s crush, had affectionately called her the heart of the group, and sometimes Cat wished she had more of a personality outside of being nice. More admirable traits. That she could speak up for herself more.   
  
Emily didn’t care, though. She was everything Cat wasn’t — vibrant, strong, strikingly pretty — but it didn’t matter. Emily seemed to like her, even though Cat wondered if she was naive next to her fellow senior.   
  
“Just be careful,” Jake said at one point. “There’s something off about her. I don’t know what.” He sighed. “I’m not talking about the fact she seems to have a mean streak...”  
  
Cat sighed. “She’s just...not perfect.” It was odd admitting that, really.   
  
Jake shrugged. “I know. I’m just looking after my girls. I don’t want you to get hurt.”  
  
Cat was grateful in that moment when the trumpeting sort of sound the alerts made when it was time to go to class.  
  
***  
  
When Jake first got the gifts — threatening messages written in blood, accusations, even an explosive that fortunately got defused in time — Luna was blamed for it. It didn’t help that the writing on one of the packages was in Luna’s all too familiar handwriting.   
  
“You know, I thought you were better than this,” Cat said to Luna. “I mean, losing your shit over a guy? That's stuff that the Old Earth movies would be making up stories about.”  
  
“I didn’t — ”  
  
“It was your handwriting!” Cat snapped. “I may be too nice, Luna, but I’m not stupid like you want me to be.”  
  
“Cat — ”  
  
“I don’t want anything to do with you,” Cat said. “I’m sorry, Luna.”  
  
She didn’t miss how hurt Luna looked before Cat walked away. Or that feeling Cat got. Like she was throwing away a part of her history.   
  
***  
  
It was one of those moments where Cat couldn’t help but wonder if she had gone too far when she had snapped at Luna. It really was a case of Be Careful What You Wish For, because Cat had finally been spunky; she just wished it hadn’t cost her a friend.   
  
Damn drama. Damn high school drama. Damn futuristic high school drama. She wished that she could just graduate high school without drama — though at least, Cat thought, she could say that she never had to see Luna again.   
  
Even that idea, though, hurt her heart. She and Luna had been friends ever since Cat had first come here, wandering the hallways and wondering where she truly belonged. And now...  
  
Would Luna even do that? Just completely lose her sense of self-control over a guy? Over Jake? Send him those gifts?   
  
Cat sighed. She had to find out somehow.  
  
***  
It was when Cat was going back to her locker in order to get something she’d left behind that she saw Emily. A flash of corn blond hair in the darkness and Cat saw her, near Jake’s locker. Somehow, the most that could register to Cat at first was the fact that Emily wasn’t supposed to be there, poking around in Jake’s locker.   
  
“What are you doing here?” Cat said.   
  
Emily looked up, and Cat swore that she got chills at the way that green eyes seemed to go all red, even the whites. Like there was blood filling her eyes. The only creature who could do that was a ratface, a shapechanger that originally was rodent-like in origin. Most of them wouldn’t dream of causing trouble. Why this one?  
  
Emily didn’t even bother offering some implausible alibi. It was like she had been waiting for that moment.   
  
“You should see the look on your face,” Emily said. She wasn’t even sneering. Or smirking. It wasn’t like when Cat and Luna had, in better times, watched _Revenge of the Sith_ as part of Luna’s obsession with Old Earth movies, and Cat had noticed Ian McDiarmid’s sinister sort of smile as he faced down Hayden Christensen. “It was just so easy to play you, wasn’t it, Cat? You believed so much in being a good person. Hypermoral. You believed me, hook, line and sinker — all because of that compassion you have.” A beat. “Compassion makes humans weak. Especially human girls. It doesn’t get things done.”  
  
 _Does she even realize she’s monologuing?_ That was the closest thing that Cat could get to a snarky thought, all things considered. And all the while, Cat wondered if Emily was just waiting to start monologuing. If she was just waiting for Cat to start listening to her completely bizarre rants.   
  
“What do you want?” Cat said.   
  
“It’s simple. Luna here was in my way. She was in the way of what I wanted. The mission I was seeking to accomplish.”  
  
“Luna did nothing to you!”  
  
Emily hissed. Cat didn’t miss how horrible the sound was, how it sounded like a snake hissing. No human could make that sound. "She had everything!” Emily snarled. “Including Jake — he should have been _mine_ by right. And yet he chose that evil cunt over me.”  
  
“I don’t know about that,” Luna snapped as she entered the fray. “Maybe he was just smart.”  
  
Cat couldn’t even back Luna up; she was still processing everything. “So _you_ sent Jake those unwanted gifts? And pinned it on Luna?”  
  
Emily nodded. “Pretty worth it to bring her down a peg. It was just...a bonus. I wasn’t sent here just for high school drama. If anything, I’d say that I just like putting stuck-up bitches in their place.”  
  
Footsteps. Cat could already feel her heart speeding up. Depending on who it was, she was probably in more or less trouble than she was before.   
  
If she could prove what was going on...  
  
Surreptitiously, she stood back and hit the button on her pad that she typically used to record lectures in class when she had to. It was something that only worked in the movies, she thought as Emily continued to monologue.   
  
But later, when Emily stopped, when she was arrested...Cat couldn’t help but think that she had done the right thing. Especially playing back the audio.   
  
Kind of like in the movies, Cat thought even as Emily — whose human features seemed to be melting away into a sort of rat-like face — was led away.   
  
***  
  
Cat wished that she could say that she was okay after what happened. She really did. The truth was that she could swear that she was reeling from what happened. Being so thoroughly used, so thoroughly manipulated...how could she have been so stupid? How could she have bought into half the things that this woman, this manipulator, had said?  
  
“I must have been a real idiot,” she said, sitting out on the steps of her high school. Everyone else was mingling, or on their pads, or something like that. “Just buying into what she said. To think that I nearly turned against you...”  
  
Luna squeezes her shoulder. “It’s not your fault, you know,” she said. “I mean, she fooled a lot of people. Really blended into the background.” A sigh. “Very Palpatine, actually.”  
  
Cat smiled faintly. Of course Luna would make a reference to Star Wars in a time like this. Of course she would.   
  
“But really,” Luna said, “You wanted to believe the best of people. Of all beings, actually. That’s what you do. It’s who you are. I think, for all the trouble it’s caused you, it’ll come in handy later.”  
  
A nod from Cat. “I hope so.” She sighed. Somehow, the idea of girls being manipulative...it wasn’t something that people liked to talk about. People liked to think that girls were sugar and spice and everything nice, that it was guys who did all the mean stuff. They didn’t like to think that girls were as capable as guys were. That girls were human, and like all humans, they were capable of cruelty and damaging people.   
  
At least Cat could say that it really was just one girl. One girl didn’t define a whole gender.   
  
“Whatever happens,” Luna said, “We’ll face this. Together.”  
  
Cat turned to Luna, smiled. Somehow, she thought, she could do this.


End file.
